I'm not going to bother replying to this because honestly, doing it in Bold and in my quoted post makes it hard for me to reply to.
Clearly, the rest of your so called "rebuttals" are just saying "Ok, since marijuana is bad we might as well ban other things that are bad."
No, that is not the point. You admit marijuana is bad. So why make it legal then?
Because I don't believe it's the government's role to micromanage and decide on what is legal and what is not just because something
may be bad due to improper use. That does not have a logical basis on banning or not because we already allow a ton of vices that are FAR less regulated than alcohol and tobacco and there's NEVER an attempt at banning them. There are people who drink their life away and do nothing worthwhile, and guess what, there's some college nerd who has cut off all contact with the world because he's playing World of Warcraft all day and living off junk food. But how many laws do
What it comes down to is do we want the government to dictate to us, law abiding citizens, what we can and can't enjoy in the privacy of our own homes and in properly permitted establishments. Do we want politicians and bureaucrats to use their own personal moral compass to say X is bad and should be banned, but Y is a-okay because they enjoy it?
And it's important to stress that legalization or even the decriminalization of pot or other drugs doesn't mean people will be shooting up heroin in the streets or in school yards. Just like tobacco and alcohol have regulations, so can pot. The key is they have to be sensible regulations that take into consideration why it's being banned or restricted in that area. Schools will obviously have an interest in banning any substance that can cause a disruption to the learning environment, regardless of their legality, and they have access to security and law enforcement to enforce these policies. Bars, that by virtue of being bars only serve adults, arne't the epitome of good health in the first place and should be allowed to make their own decisions on legal products like tobacco use and, if it ever becomes legal again, marijuana.
We should be treating drug
abuse (because simply using marijuana or any illicit drug isn't automatically abuse) just like we do with tobacco abuse and alcohol abuse and video game addiction and fast food addiction and addictions to porn and so many other addictions and abuses: as a disease that can be cured.